I should have like this book more then I did. It is well written. I do understand the love for a house especially since recently we just had to sell my childhood home and I was devestated. However, I could not get to an understanding of this sacrafice as Rose stays in her home until her death. It is an interesting historic time when the Prefect and Napoleon III decide to renovate the streets of Paris into long , straight boulevards making people leave their homes and businesses. ( )

I am surprised at how much I hated this book because I loved "Sarah's Key". The fact that it took me three moths to read it should have been enough to get me to stop but when I start a book I finish it.The book is about a widow named Rose Bazelet who fights until the end to save her house from destruction during the renovation of Paris, France in 1860's. ( )

Can a novel make us nostalgic for a place we’ve never been? With her third English-language release, an uncomplicated story brimming with homespun details, Tatiana de Rosnay presents a convincing case. Nearly every sentence evokes the appeal of mid-19th-century Paris, the city she clearly loves, and her empathy for the citizens whose homes and dreams were obliterated by the march of progress.

The old Paris is no more (the shape of a city changes faster, alas! than the human heart).

--Charles Baudelaire, "The Swan," 1861

I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography -- to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings.

--Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Dedication

This is for my mother, Stella,

and for my House Man: NJ

First words

My beloved, I can hear them coming up our street.

Quotations

Last words

When reached by our journalist, the Prefecture's legal counsel replied that the Prefect had no comment whatsoever to make concerning the matter.

Wikipedia in English

None

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Book description

Paris, France: 1860’s. Hundreds of houses are being razed, whole neighborhoods reduced to ashes. By order of Emperor Napoleon III, Baron Haussman has set into motion a series of large-scale renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, moulding it into a “modern city.” The reforms will erase generations of history—but in the midst of the tumult, one woman will take a stand.

Rose Bazelet is determined to fight against the destruction of her family home until the very end; as others flee, she stakes her claim in the basement of the old house on rue Childebert, ignoring the sounds of change that come closer and closer each day. Attempting to overcome the loneliness of her daily life, she begins to write letters to Armand, her beloved late husband. And as she delves into the ritual of remembering, Rose is forced to come to terms with a secret that has been buried deep in her heart for thirty years. Tatiana de Rosnay's The House I Loved is both a poignant story of one woman’s indelible strength, and an ode to Paris, where houses harbor the joys and sorrows of their inhabitants, and secrets endure in the very walls...

Haiku summary

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▾Library descriptions

"Paris, France: 1860's. Hundreds of houses are being razed, whole neighborhoods reduced to ashes. By order of Emperor Napoleon III, Baron Haussman has set into motion a series of large-scale renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, moulding it into a modern city. The reforms will erase generations of history-but in the midst of the tumult, one woman will take a stand. Rose Bazelet is determined to fight against the destruction of her family home until the very end; as others flee, she stakes her claim in the basement of the old house on rue Childebert, ignoring the sounds of change that come closer and closer each day. Attempting to overcome the loneliness of her daily life, she begins to write letters to Armand, her beloved late husband. And as she delves into the ritual of remembering, Rose is forced to come to terms with a secret that has been buried deep in her heart for thirty years. The House I Loved is both a poignant story of one woman's indelible strength, and an ode to Paris, where houses harbor the joys and sorrows of their inhabitants, and secrets endure in the very walls"-- Cover verso.… (more)